National identity as driver of tourism development - the study of Norway

The urgent global need to decrease the dependence on natural resource extraction and find solutions for a sustainable future is also reflected in policies prioritized by the Norwegian government. Among others, tourism has been defined as a promising alternative for future economic development. Tourism in Norway has not remained unaffected by the global growth in international tourist arrivals. This growth is often neither geographically nor temporally equally apportioned, which hampers tourism’s transformative power of generating year-round and well-distributed income. Further, tourists are no longer purely driven by hedonic and relaxation needs: they also want to challenge themselves and deeply immerse themselves in foreign nature, culture, and other types of experiences. We argue that better integration of national identity can draw the needs of tourists and hosting communities nearer to each other and, thus, become a driver of tourism development. Based on a comprehensive literature, this conceptual paper explores the core elements of the Norwegian identity, including political and cultural values, national characteristics, interests, and lifestyles, and their integration by the tourism industry. We find that only some of these elements have been used by the industry and have often been commodified for economic gain. We discuss a few examples of how national identity can be translated into unique selling points that could generate sustainable development. This, however, requires strong governance, and coordinated and integrative destination management that involves stakeholders from within tourism and beyond, particularly local communities.